Hmmmm....does your girlfriend live far away from you, where you have to plan your visits to go see her? Are your 'busy weeks' of this alleged non-stop sex planned ahead of time? What I'm insisting is that if you know ahead of time that you're going to see her and be intimate with her, then maybe there's a little bit of stress or nervousness inside of you that causes the breakouts. I know that sometimes when I have a date, I break out a few days before just because I worry about having a clear face on the night of the date. From what I've read on this bulleting board, skilled relaxation is highly recommended to eliminate stress. Try reading the archives on Skilled Relaxation. Good luck!

No. I am not nervous at all. Me and my girlfriend have been going out for years. We are very comfortable with each other and I don't get nervous to tell her anything. I'm rarely stressed. In fact the most i've gotten stressed this year so far is trying to get to the restroom once or twice that i thought i wouldn't make it. Other than those two or three incidents, i rarely have stress. I have no nightmares, not financially stressed, not sexually deprived, and I workout regularly and i'm very fit.
I tried the whole foods diet, but i never felt any of the withdrawal symptoms that i was supposed to have so I never saw a difference within a month. I guess my own eating habits weren't that bad. All the diet changed was maybe the brand of bread i eat and brand of corn flakes, other than that i've been eating mostly whole foods. Whole foods is just the way i've been brought up with from childhood, and it was not intended as a diet it's just a normal thing in my family that we eat whole foods.
I'm just wondering if such sexual activity of reaching an orgasm will cause some temporary change in the hormonal imbalance or something that will cause one's acne o breakout. I am more that sure it has nothing to do with my stress, in fact one feels more relaxed after sex. I've tried to test this a couple of times by masterbating once a day, I get moderate acne breakouts. By masterbating twice a day, I get breakouts on my face, shoulders, back, and chest. I went without masterbating for about a month (very hard to do) and noticed that all my acne did nothing but start going away and I had no breakout. I maybe got a pimple or two from working out and sweating, but nothing from not masterbating.

In Reply to: Acne and Sex posted by Dany on August 26, 1999 at 06:47:53:

I've read a couple of things that claim there is a spike in testosterone after sex. Increased T levels might lead to increased acne. Of course, there have also been reports of increased T levels after your home town baseball team wins too... So I guess you'll just have break up with your girlfriend and hope the boys of summer tank the rest of the season...

If you had read the archives about acne, you would know that your suspicion about a hormonal imbalance, triggered by the sexual activity, IS what is going on and WHY you would be so close to the limits of your stress-effect storage that this is all it takes to push you over the edge. At the age of 21, this is the only possibility.

That means that you need a much more comprehensive understanding of what stored stress-effect IS. Go to the FAQ, the glossary and the archive about stress and the ones about skilled relaxation for THAT understanding.

NO. The sexual activity is changing your hormone balance which, in a person with adequate stress reserves, would be perfectly normal and cause no acne.

Hopwever, if you are close to your stress-effect limits, sexual activity changes can be enough to further unbalance your hormones.

Hope this is making sense.

IF you are very comfortable in church, prayer is a very good way to change the brain rhythms into the area of the "relaxation response" we are describing when we say SR. It would be a good idea to check (with biofeedback) what happens to your brain rhythms when you pray---just as described under SR. Prayer is another way to do the same thing and many people do it just that way.

IF you think you SHOULD go to church but are not fulfilled there, this would not be a likely place to reduce your stress-effect.